


Nighthawks at the Diner

by K_dAzrael



Series: Femme!Jokester [2]
Category: DCU - Comicverse, DCU - Earth 3
Genre: AU, F/M, Genderswitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-23
Updated: 2010-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_dAzrael/pseuds/K_dAzrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jokester and Owlsie have an apocalyptic rooftop showdown, then go for coffee and pie. Seriously, that's pretty much what happens. This one is set between 'Urizen' and 'The In-Laws'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nighthawks at the Diner

> Ilsa: Can I tell you a story, Rick?  
>  Rick: Has it got a wild finish?  
>  Ilsa: I don't know the finish yet.  
>  Rick: Well, go on. Tell it - maybe one will come to you as you go along.  
>  [_Casablanca_]

*~*~*

When he steps onto the rooftop she is standing with her back to him, just a foot away from the edge. She raises her arms as if she wants to embrace the smoggy and starless Gotham sky and announces: “this ol’ town... it’s like a cancer on the face of the earth, isn’t it? Don’t you think, _hm_? Or a stinky black dog that gnaws and gnaws on us until there’s nothing left but bone...” she spins around to face him, grimacing and trying to make it look like it’s a smile. “It’s one of those irraaay-diated cities – like, uh, Chernobyl... everyone gets paler and weaker the longer they spend here. Sick building syndrome times a million – or something in the waaaater...”

She’s mad, but he notes that it’s Ophelia-grade stage mad – the Jokester is actually incapable of doing anything naturalistically. He comes closer until he can see the glazed, faraway look in her acid-green eyes. He has seen her in this mode only a few times and it’s never a good sign. 

“And... you know what’s reeeeally fucking _funny_? You actually want to own this shit-hole... like it’s your little Park Place on the Monopoly board! Ha ha ha ha!” Her face screws up, the white paint deepening the wrinkles in the skin. Then she stumbles into him and laughs in his face, and her breath is sour and sharp, like spoiled milk. 

“Stop it,” he says, smacking her with the flat of his hand, as if he expects that to bring her out of it. She takes a step backwards, closer to the edge. Now her lips are drawn back from her teeth, like those of a cornered animal: she might do anything, because she has finally, finally lost _everything_. It enrages him to know he wasn’t even the one directly responsible. 

She reaches into her jacket, there is a sudden glint of grey-silver and a gun appears: a long-barreled service revolver – Colt 45 probably, though he isn’t close enough to tell and her over-long sleeve partially obscures it. 

“This belonged to my old man,” she says, looking at it thoughtfully and cocking it with an audible click as she holds it in both hands and squints down the barrel with her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. “I stole it from him, oh, yeeeears back. He used to like to wave it around after he’d had a few. Yeah. Broke my cheekbone with it once.”

“I know,” Owlman says, staying perfectly still. From there she only has a twenty percent chance of breaching the kevlar plating of his cloak but if she can aim the shot through his exposed portion of face she could shatter the back of his skull. He has never seen her use a gun before – the kick from an antique like that should be too much for a female of her build, but she is deceptively strong and tenacious.

“Feels good in your hand, doesn’t it?” he murmurs. “Heavy and real. A simple thing, but more effective than those gadgets of yours. The effects are more _permanent_, too. Just imagine.” 

She continues to stare at the object in her hands, just standing there with the wind whipping at her hair and clothes, looking as baffled as a sleepwalker who has awoken in an unfamiliar location, with no knowledge of how they came to be there. 

“So what are you waiting for? Take your best shot,” he goads. “Cross the line. Your kid is missing, maybe dead – I guess running out on each other runs in your family. Your freakshow pals are gone, and just maybe they’re dead too. Everyone you loved just left you behind and you’re still stuck here – alone. You’ll always be alone. There’s no-one left to impress, nobody to fight for – so what have you got to lose? _Do it_.”

She smiles, disconcertingly, and looks up at him with something like lucidity. “You want me to put you out of your misery, Owlsie – is that what this is about? You’re telling me that all the years we’ve been doing this it was some elaborate scheeeme leading up to this moment – ‘death by second-rate comedian’?” She tilts her head. “Or is this some kind of ‘come to the dark side, Jackie!’ kind of deal?” 

He doesn’t say anything, just calmly meets her stare. Yes, that is what he wants, although it’s a fantasy which has played out in his mind with many variations – sometimes the clown is his trusted lieutenant, crouched at his right hand and waiting for his orders, eager for his approval and basking in his superior strength. Sometimes she is also his consort, grown healthy and sleek, hanging from his arm in evening dress, her scars marking her out as his and no-one else’s. Occasionally, he even imagines her belly swollen with his offspring – he would allow her to nurture them until they were ten, then it would be time for them to be thrown onto the street. To see what they could make of themselves – sink or swim, like their parents... 

Her voice breaks in upon his reflections. “Or... are you just trying to make this about _you_, hm? Does it just kill you to know that you weren’t the thing that broke me? It’s kind of _pa-thetic_ you know, how you’re so needy for my attention.”

“Shut up now, _freak_,” he growls.

“Tch! Mama’s boy.” 

The gun goes skittering onto the ground between them and she looks at him, waiting for him to lunge for it. When he doesn’t she snarls and flings herself at him, leaping forward like a tightly-coiled spring suddenly released. Her fingernails are at his neck, sharp even through the protection of his costume; she leans backwards instead of propelling them both forwards, as he expects – she is trying to drag him over the edge. A knee shoots up towards his lower abdomen but he grabs it and pushes, stumbling on the very ledge until he finally gets a footing. 

“Stop it you fucking crazy bitch!”

She laughs and lets go, her body bending with an uncharacteristic grace as she dives; head first, arms out, towards the street below.

He makes a sound and it might be a word or it might just be a roar of anger. She is still laughing and her eyes are closed, but they flick open again the instant the grapple catches her ankle, arresting the majestic fall with a savage jerk. Then she dangles there with one leg crooked out to the side like the tarot card’s hanged man as he hauls her up back over the ledge. 

Owlman grabs her before she can try it again, covering her frame with his own and pressing her down against the asphalt. She grunts and struggles but he waits for her to be still. Eventually she sighs and whines against his ear: “you just couldn’t let me go, could you? You really are a sadistic bastard.” 

Her body goes limp, so he gets up, leaving her sprawled there in a daze. He turns his back and moves swiftly towards the stairs, trusting that she won’t pull another stunt without him there, watching. Whatever she’s been through, she’s still the Jokester – she doesn’t do anything without an audience. Because what would be the point of that?

*~*~*

He waits in a diner which is too brightly lit. He doesn’t know if she’ll come. His face is bare and he wonders how she’ll look when he’s not gazing through the eyeholes of the mask, and if she’ll recognise him or not. ‘_A, aha, blind date?_’ she’d said over the crackly radio connection, but her voice was flat, uninflected – like a soap-opera or porn actor, who reads lines like their native English isn’t even a remotely familiar language.

The door swings on its hinges and the chimes jangle as she steps in out of the rain. The make-up has been mostly washed away. She looks bad – thinner (as if such a thing were possible), and the green velvet suit is torn and dusty.

The middle-aged waitress in a half-apron over a polyester shift dress looks up and frowns in distaste – Owlman can tell the woman is debating whether or not to tell the derelict to leave. He slides from the booth and rises to his feet, indicating the seat opposite himself with a gesture (once he was Gotham’s own Little Lord Fauntleroy, and he still remembers his manners). Her face registers a flicker of surprise, her trudging step falters, then she continues the approach, folding her bony limbs into the space required.

“You want something to eat?” he asks. When she doesn’t answer he orders her coffee and pie anyway. The waitress writes it down with one eyebrow raised, as if she can’t work out the exact relationship between the handsome, well-dressed man and the walking dead he associates with, but suspects whatever is going on must be something she deeply disapproves of.

Only when the items arrive does the Jokester show signs of life, slurping the coffee that must be too hot and shoveling the pie into her mouth with a fork, the blueberry filling staining her teeth. The fork clatters onto the plate when she’s finished (which is a matter of seconds). He catches the waitress’ attention again and orders her a club sandwich, thinking she probably needs something more substantial. It takes a couple of minutes to arrive, during which he stares at her and she watches raindrops streak the window and drinks the coffee, and only when she’s taken a first bite of the sandwich and a gulp of her refill does she finally speak.

“I forget sometimes.”

“To eat?”

“Yeah, that. And, other things.”

Washing, changing clothes and sleeping are definitely among those things, but they’re not what she means. She rubs an eye with the heel of her hand, smearing her remaining dark makeup into a wider circle of grey.

“So to what do I owe this pleasure, Owl–? Geez, I don’t even know what to call you when you’re wearing that face.”

“‘Matches’, if you want. That’s the name I use on the street.”

She looks at him in bewilderment and then starts laughing, slumping down on the table next to her plate, shoulders convulsing. “Oh, God, that really is you, isn’t it? Nobody else could come up with a fake name that’s so damn _lame_ and look so serious about it! I mean, ‘street name’, what are you, a working girl?”

He just about stops himself from growling ‘shut up, clown’, sitting back and folding his arms over his chest. 

Eventually she recovers enough from her giggling fit to continue eating. “So, how’ve you been?” she asks around a mouthful.

“Busy.”

“What’s it this time – weapons of mass destruction?”

“Missing persons.”

She stops chewing and glances up. “Yeah?”

“Your daughter and Talon... wherever they are it’s not here. And by _here_ I mean... look,” he sits forward, folding one hand over the other on the table top, “Talon had a tracer he didn’t know about – subdermal. It’s still functioning, sending out a signal, and it moves around, but when I track it to the place it should be... there’s nothing there. The scanner tells me I’m on top of it, but I’m standing in an empty warehouse, or a vacant lot.”

“Here, but not here?” she says, sounding thoughtful more than surprised. “That’s Duela.” She looks up at him and smiles, the eerie smile of the contentedly insane.

“Nygma and Dent are in San Francisco. They weren’t hard to trace along the way, conspicuous as they are.” He catches her gaze again. “I can have them brought back.”

She shakes her head. “Eddie and... no, it’s best that they’re gone. They should stay gone.”

“You must have done something spectacular to make them high-tail it to the other side of the country.”

“Well, it’s, uh, _complicated_. Leave it at that.”

He smirks. “Oh? So which one of them did you fuck?”

She groans and puts a hand to her head. 

“It wasn’t all _three_ at once was it?”

“No it was not! Quiet now _Mister Matches Esquire_. Let a lady finish her dinner.”

*~*~*

He holds the door and lets her walk out ahead of him onto the street. The rain is still coming down in wind-blown sheets, battering the brim of his hat the moment he fits it back on his head. He pulls the belt of his trenchcoat tight and turns up the collar, shivering as water drips down his neck. 

The Jokester looks totally indifferent to the weather, just standing on the sidewalk with her hands shoved in her pockets. She looks up at him through twisted strands of wet purple hair. “I’m not broken you know. I’ll be ok. Soon I’ll be back to my old tricks – well, something like them.”

He nods and she steps closer, reaching out to squeeze his forearm with her eyes wide with false concern. “Are _you_ going to be alright? I know you don’t like change, Owlet, but nothing stays the same. Not even us. I mean, it’d be pretty pathetic if we were still chasing each other around Gotham on zimmer frames – though I suppose I could get one of those motorized scooter things. Put tear gas bombs in the handbasket on the front, paint badass flame details along the sides – Jokestermobile circa 2040.”

“Hn.”

“Oh, Come on, it’s _funny_. Imagine it!” 

He looks at her and she grins, eyes crinkling. Maybe she’s right – it is funny, the whole thing – their lives. All the schemes and the weapons and personas. Dressing up like an owl and a clown. For what?

He starts to chuckle and she grips the front of his coat and leans backwards, laughing with her mouth wide open so he can see its red interior. When the fit eventually subsides she slumps against his chest and his arms go around her to stop her from sliding onto the pavement. She rests her pointed chin on his breastbone and looks at him with no trace of familiarity, like she has no idea who he is – as if he’s just a kind stranger. 

Her arms cross behind his neck and he leans down to kiss her. Her lips are so chapped it’s hard to tell where they end and her scars begin, but then the lips part and the tip of his tongue is touching hers. She makes a rumbling sound deep in her chest and her mascaraed eyelashes flutter as she tips her head back and he kisses her again, pulling her in tighter by keeping one arm around her shoulders and sliding his free hand down her crooked back to press his palm into the dip at the base of her spine. 

As suddenly as it started, it breaks. They both untangle and take a small step back. Apparently returned to her senses (as much as ever), the Jokester sticks her hands into her pockets once more and drawls: “aw Owlsie... going all Humphrey Bogart on me, who’d have thought? Silly old bird.”

As if on cue, a yellow cab turns the corner and glides towards them through the misty vapour thrown up by the rain hitting hard surfaces. Owlman hails it, and when it comes to a halt alongside them he opens the door and hands her down into it. Then he gives the driver two fifty dollar bills and tells him to take the passenger wherever she wants to go.

*~*~*

“Where _do_ you wanna go?” the driver asks, looking at her in the rearview mirror as he pulls away from the kerb.

“Home,” she answers absently.

“Where’s that?”

She blinks. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll work something out.”

“Hey! I know you – you’re that clown lady off the news, am I right? Yeah, the Joker.”

“Joke_ster_.”

“Those are some crazy stunts you pull.”

“Thanks,” she says, leaning back against the squeaky leatherette upholstery. “I’m working on a new routine.”

*~*~*

**A/N**: As you may have noticed, I only hint at what happened to the Riddler family in this universe. They don’t all get killed off as in the E3 shown in Countdown to Final Crisis, but yeah – bad shit goes down. One of these days I might even write that story!

**Author's Note:**

> As you may have noticed, I only hint at what happened to the Riddler family in this universe. They don't all get killed off as in the E3 shown in Countdown to Final Crisis, but yeah – bad shit goes down. One of these days I might even write that story!


End file.
